


Labyrinth 2: Revenge of the Goblin King

by Madzie2000



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M, Jareth has 3 forms, Jareth has no control over Sarah, Jareth is still hung up on Sarah
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-07-20 02:09:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7386514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madzie2000/pseuds/Madzie2000
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story is set in 2016, thirty years after Sarah was taken to the Goblin Kingdom in the Underground. She is now (aged 45) a mother to the on-edge, adopted teenager Jessica. Jareth’s love for Sarah has finally diminished; because Sarah can no longer be put under his spell he grants Jessica a single selfish wish, leaving Sarah to watch helplessly as Jessica fights her way through the Labyrinth as she had many years ago. The stakes are high, but how will Jessica choose to live: alone in the Aboveground or with Jareth in the Underground? </p><p>This fic was posted in memoriam of David Bowie; may this fanfiction do your legacy justice.<br/>As a visual guide for those who want to know what Jareth's new from looks like, he is Rhys Ifans (Adrian) from Little Nicky: the resemblance is there I promise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jareth Returns (and a Journey Begins)

Sarah was down stairs with Jessica who was happily scribbling at her assignment, listening to a song through her earphones as the cold, heavy rain outside whipped at the windows. Jessica enjoyed the topic of her English assignment: a story of your childhood retold. Sarah had given her an epic story of Ludo, Sir Didymus, Hoggle and the Goblin King Jareth with his mismatched eyes. It had sounded so fantastical that Jessica made the choice to writ it out and shred up the pages she didn’t need: she could only have 3 pages, one-sided. Jessica looked out of the window, focusing hard as she tried to remember a single line form the story. She may have heard it a thousand times before, but there was always one that skipped her mind; _what did she say? What does she say to make Toby go away? Maybe Phoenix will remember! I told him that story as many times as I’ve heard it._ Jessica pulled one earphones out and called over to her mother – despite the fact that she was adopted she did respect her enough to give her the title.

 

“Mum, can I go to Phoenix’s place tonight to finish the story?” Sarah turned furious eyes in Jessica’s direction. The only reason Jessica was ever allowed to enjoy her English was the fact that she got A’s in it every year, besides Music class. _You are in Grade 11 and you can barely get your head around square roots for crying out loud!_ Phoenix was just another spanner in the works.

“No. You went over last week and forgot about your Math homework. I’m punishing you for it this week by not letting you go again.” Jessica was mad enough to hit pause on the song and abandon her writing to stare at Sarah.

“Since when?” You never said that!”

“Yes I did. When you came home later than usual on Monday I told you that I wanted you home earlier than 5 o’clock.”

“Mr Clarke asked me if I was having trouble with the homework he’d set and I said yes, so he gave me a hand with it.”

 

Jessica lost her anger and instead swapped it out for a hidden desire to piss off her adoptive mother.

“Shoot me.” Sarah had heard enough of the bickering for the day.

“Jessica! Stop arguing with me about this please. Why don’t you ask me a question about the story? I know that you wanted to ask Phoenix about a part that you’re stuck on.” Jessica tried her darndest to calm herself but the hype of anger was still present in her tone, sounding cold. Sarah knew she was trying at least. Being a foster child had left Jessica with a short temper and the feeling that she was alone no matter how many people surrounded her.

“Well there’s just the one I can’t remember; what you said to make Toby disappear. That is literally the only line I ever forget.” Sarah rolled her eyes, remembering what forgetting a line had almost cost her.

“The line is ‘I wish that the goblins would take you away’, and then I added ‘right now’ before I shut the bedroom door.”

 

The teenager grinned mischievously.

“Cool, now I know how to get rid of you.” Sarah’s eyes widened in horror.

“Jessica, you wouldn’t, would you?” No reply.

“You actually wish me away to that awful place?” Jessica laughed hysterically, the hilarity of Sarah’s expression so strong that she fell from her chair beside the lounge and fell to the floor, almost hitting her head. Wheezing and barely keeping a smile from her face, Jessica put in her earphones and turned up the volume of her music. The music started up automatically and she hit the pause button on the small, square touch screen of her IPod. Her mind was made up: she would have some fun while she annoyed her mother at the same time.

“You’ve got to be kidding me? Saying it won’t actually **do** anything! It’s all make-believe and fairy tales and pixie dust. I’ll prove it and you can stop pretending to be so upset: maybe you’ll grow up.”

“Jessica, if you say it I’ll never forgive you: I’ll stop you from ever seeing Phoenix ever again.”

 

Jessica’s face dropped from a devious grin to an angry frown and she turned on her music with the earphones planted firmly in place.

“All I want is a companion and you won’t let me have that: I wish you were mature, I wish you would help me but no, you choose not to. It’s always up to me to occupy myself with chores and music or even my writing before you even think of talking to me. You know what? I really do wish that the goblins would take you away… right now.” Sarah and Jessica jumped when the clock in the stairwell struck midnight, echoing loudly enough that Jessica could hear its chime through her loud music. Sarah was alarmed to see an all-too-familiar owl scratching and clawing at the window where Jessica had been sitting, its big, round, eyes flashing in the lightning outside.

“Jess, why did you say that? I told you not to say it!” Something brushed past Jessica’s leg and she squealed as a brown wrinkled face smiled back at her with small yellow teeth. Sarah grabbed her daughter’s hand as they ran upstairs to avoid their unwelcome guests.

 

“He’s after us… close all the doors and cover the windows. We’ll hide under the beds… hurry!” The owl was scratching at the glass as the rain outside picked up, strengthening its resolve to get in. When the blinds were pulled down by Sarah it put in all the strength it could muster to push and scratch to cut the glass deeply. Jessica crawled toward the small bed her uncle had used as a child until he grew too big and moved rooms. The cot had been hidden away in the basement for Sarah when she had children, something that had and would never happen. Sarah had squashed herself into the closet across the room, realising that the large bed had been taken out of the room a long time ago. _Why did I have to re-arrange everything when Dad died and left me the house?_ Inwardly cursing herself, Sarah heard the glass smash and flitter across the carpeted floor of the old nursery, fastening a hand over her mouth. Jessica – who had rolled underneath the bed just as the window shattered – saw the owl transform into a man with wild blonde hair.

 

At the angle he stood on, she couldn’t see his face properly.

“Where are you Sarah? I know we haven’t seen each other in a long time but after 3 decades **this** is how you greet me: the man who could have given you everything you ever wanted.” Sarah could smell the moth balls in the cupboard and spied one by her foot… along with a rather large, black, hairy spider. She held back a squeal as the spider crawled over her foot and continued walking down the long closet’s floor. Sarah let out her relieved sigh a little too loudly. Jareth ripped back the door of the closet and came face-to-face with a grown woman; the Sarah he had once loved was gone.

“Where is the girl? The one that made the wish?” Sarah stared at the bed next to the one she knew Jessica was hiding under, averting Jareth’s suspicion. Jareth smiled and lifted the bed with one hand, utterly disappointed to find that it had nobody underneath. Jessica saw that he was facing away and took this opportunity to get a closer look at him, poking her head out of her hiding place. Jareth turned to the second bed and spied a blonde girl staring up at him.

 

She squeaked like a mouse coveting cheese and scurried back against the wall, her hands over her head in a defensive position. Jareth’s face shifted, becoming somewhat younger, his nose becoming taller and the impressive jawline grew slimmer. His voice had grown less intimidating, taking on an almost comical height.

“I know where you are **Jessica** and I will take your mother back to the Goblin City where she belongs… unless you have something to say about it.” Jessica could see Jareth’s feet walk toward the bed, the mattress and bed frame pushing her back – and the rest of her body – forwards as gravity moved them behind, sliding down the wall.

“Found you.” Jareth watched Jessica and wipe her arms of the dust bunnies that had gathered there.

“I hear you don’t believe that we exist?” Hundreds of goblins filled the hallway, the room they stood in and were even in the hollowed-out ceiling above, cackling and jeering to reiterate Jareth’s point.

“Do you believe in us now?”

 

Jessica screamed when a hand grabbed her arm and yanked her to the ground. Instead of a carpeted floor meeting her face and hands she found it to be hard, yellow-orange rock. Her entire body began to ache, a few stones poking at her ribs and palms, her body’s weight pushing them in further. Jessica’s hands scraped at the ground as if expecting to come across an object to help her stand, but found none. She managed to raise her body at her hips, lifting her chest and catching sight of Jareth’s boots. As he crouched down she was close enough to notice that his hair was no longer an unruly mess. Instead it was short and spiky… and she saw those blue and brown eyes glaring down at her. Jessica stood up proudly and held his steely gaze. His body was clad from head to toe in black and it only added to his intimidating appearance, Jareth’s height making it worse still.

“Now you will follow in your mother’s footsteps. I leave you 13 hours in which you must solve the Labyrinth and get to your mother. Should you fail she will stay here with me and become my Queen as I had planned some time ago.”

 

Sarah could hear the conversation form the Castle as if they were standing right in front of her in the Throne Room.

“If you solve the Labyrinth the title of Queen will fall to you.” Jessica gulped and analysed her situation carefully, hoping her bluntness would cause the Goblin King to change his mind.

“So if I leave her she has to become Queen, but if I stay and fight my way forward I will be the one stuck here for the rest of my life?” Jareth shook his head.

“Not life, **eternity**.” The word echoed in Jessica and Sarah’s mind as if Jareth had whispered it in their ear. _That means we won’t see each other again… unless I do something brave._

“It’s your choice Jessica: fight for your throne or leave her here with me.” Jareth shifted into his older form of thirty years ago, quickly shifting back into the younger version to gauge Jessica and Sarah’s reactions. They were both confused.

“I can change but people from Aboveground never do: make your choice.”

 

Suddenly Sarah’s voice rang out form the Castle at the centre of the Labyrinth.

“Leave me here. Go home Jess!” While Jareth was distracted by Sarah Jessica threw a punch at him and his body became like water, the fisted hand sinking through his body and emerging on the other side. His body became solid and her hand unclasped itself and wriggled about, the feeling of a foreign body bumping rhythmically against her forearm. Jessica was now in full panic mode at the idea that she was this close to the man’s cold heart.

“Let me go!” Jareth leaned down to her face, making her elbow bend on an odd angle.

“Make. The choice.” Jessica could feel a sob building up in her throat, feeling his warm breath glide across her face like mist across a loch in the wintertime.

“I’ll fight – just let me go.” Jareth grinned maliciously and the flesh of his chest around her arm rippled, the limb rocketing from him with amazing speed. Jareth tilted his head and allowed himself a sneer. What he said next made Jessica sick.

“Never.” He disappeared and left her at the giant maze’s door, the ancient wood opening up immediately.

“Okay… that wasn’t terrifying at all.” With the sarcasm calming her nerves a little, Jessica trudged through the doors and began her journey through the Labyrinth.


	2. Mr Worm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessica remembers part of her mothers story and finds a kind worm who likes to babble; what does he say to put her on the course of doom?

The maze’s high walls were almost entrancing, stretching on forever. Jessica ran down the path, slowing as fatigue set in. Her mind wandered to the story and she had already missed some of it: Hoggle wasn’t out spraying fairies, which meant that he must be somewhere else in the Labyrinth. When she lost her cool and began shouting, her mind drifted back to her Sarah’s story. _The worm told her where to go but I don’t know where he is! I suppose all I can do is hope that he’s nearby and that he can hear me..._

“Mister Worm? Are you still here?” A small, high pitched, lightly rasping voice called out to her from atop a jutting brick in the vast expanse of wall. he had spectacles the size of her thumbnail and a small coat over the first five segments of his lumpy body, a dull albeit light grey to match the walls surrounding them.

“Allo. You lookin’ for me?” the worm queried.

Jessica turned and scanned the walls, finding the blue worm sitting very still.

“Oh thank god! Can you help me get to the Castle? I desperately need to go there and save my mother.”

 

The worm blinked his eyes and became cross.

“I don’t likes them goblins! They tried to eat me, lost the fun and put me out here. I used to live in the bog because I has no nose to smell its smell with and... Why do you want to go there again?” Jessica sighed and an idea blossomed in her mind like a rose after winter’s ice had melted away.

“My mother was taken by Jareth. If I take you with me you can guide me around until I get to the bog. Then I can just drop you off, deal?”

 

The worm shook his head.

“No, I have the Missus ‘ere at home with my children: go by yourself.” She sighed loudly in defeat.

“Fair enough. Could you at least tell me which way to go from here?” said Jessica with a knowing smile.

“Sure, but I don’t think you’d believe me.” Jessica’s face froze.

“What did you say?”

 

The worm blinked once, moving his head in the direction he wanted her to move.

“Go left.” Jessica shook her head as a thought popped into her mind and came out into the world through her mouth.

“You said that I wouldn’t believe you, so what you said is a lie… that means I should go right.” With determination in her eyes and pride in her heart, Jessica turned to the wall and walked forward. Instead of hitting the dark grey brick she found that it was an optical illusion: a clever trick indeed.

 

“Goodbye Mr Worm. Keep the Missus safe for me!” The worm frowned and shook his head.

“Just like the last girl who came through… she doesn’t believe anything that she should and everything that she shouldn’t. Good riddance to the lot of you!” The worm continued babbling as Jessica pressed on, greeted with sandstone walls and hedges.

Finally, something seemed to be going her way.

 

 

That wasn't meant to be a fourth wall break at the end of the chapter, but if you want it to be, feel free to imagine it as such :)


	3. Things are About to Get... Worse?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jareth and Sarah have a disagreement and Jessica manages to get herself out of trouble... but have things gotten better of worse? Even Jareth can't tell.

Jessica was wandering through a large collection of hedges when she heard shouts , mostly likely in pain. Little goblin men atop four-legged beasts charged at her with strange giant-toothed creatures clinging to the ends of long sticks. One of the goblins thrust the animal in her direction and it latched onto her arm, blood rushing out of her veins and into the open air along with a piercing cry. Inside the castle at the centre of the Labyrinth Jareth was watching Sarah who he had put into a giant cage, the simple furnishings of a wooden chair and a small table with fruit on it as her only company. The stares she got from the goblins in Jareth’s court were more than unnerving, but the man himself confused her even more. One of the crystal balls Jareth had been running over and through his hands floated between the bars, hovering in front of her as she stared out of a window.

“Take it Sarah,” Jareth said in his new younger form, “you can watch your daughter from here in the castle with me as a guest rather than a prisoner in the Labyrinth. That **is** always what you wanted, isn’t it; to be free of reality?”

 

“Leave me be Jareth,” Sarah retorted, “I have nothing that you want anymore. I don’t wish for anything but my daughters safety and I know for a fact that you’ve moved on from me.”

“But she isn’t your daughter, is she Sarah?” he asked in a gentle tone.

Sarah was frozen in place as if the crystal ball held some kind of power over her; he couldn’t anymore but something in his question seemed almost suggestive.

“Didn’t the men aboveground find you attractive?” he teased, “look into that crystal Sarah and see what I did for you. What makes you think I wouldn’t do that for your child?”

Sarah looked at Jareth and held his gaze as he slipped effortlessly through the bars of his cell.

“What are you saying?” Sarah asked with a hesitance to her tone.

“I should have been the one to give you a child, not a stranger who would never meet her,” he answered honestly.

Sarah was outraged at his suggestion and was about to slap him across the face when a small pack of crystal balls flew at her and held her arms still.

 

He smiled at her reaction as if it amused him and she didn’t seem surprised. His smile disappeared when they heard a scream sound out from the Labyrinth’s high walls. Sarah and Jareth both knew that it was Jessica. The crystal balls left

“I will come back for you Sarah” Jareth said as he moved through the bars again, “and we **will** finish this conversation.”

Sarah called out to his as he pulled a crystal ball from his pocket and left the room.

“You monster… I can’t believe that I ever trusted you with my heart!”

Jareth stopped in the doorway and fought off the temptation to turn back and make her understand what those words meant to him. _I would have been her slave… and she would have been mine_. Jareth left the room and Sarah mentally reprimanded herself for threatening him. He was powerful enough to kill her if he really wanted, but until Jessica got to the Castle she was stuck there with the Goblin King.

 

In the Labyrinth Jessica was on the ground being mauled by four goblins on their strange horses when Jareth walked out from behind a hedge and cleared his throat.

“If you want to find yourself completely submerged in the Bog of Eternal Stench,” he said through clenched teeth, “then you’re doing exactly what is necessary to get yourselves there. Leave her be.”

Jessica wiped tears from the corner of her eyes and stared up at Jareth as the men moved away, taking their torturous creatures on sticks with them. Despite hating him in every way imaginable, when Jareth extended a hand out to Jessica to help her up, she took it. Her legs and arms were covered in scratches and deep cuts. The worst of it was where one of the vile animals had sunken its teeth into her flesh and blood had begun to flow freely. Jareth let a hand hover above the open wound and healed it in an instant. The burning sensation of the healing process made Jessica jerk away from his hand, leaving a terrible scar in place of the gash. Looking up into his eyes she found herself lost for a split second, the screams of her mother shaking her from the dream-like state she had found herself in.

 

“JESS! JESS, DON’T TRUST ANYONE!”

Jareth turned a fierce stare toward the castle, his expression changing when he saw the fright in Jessica’s eyes. He became emotionless and stepped closer to the young woman.

“Solve the Labyrinth and join me; only then will you find someone you can truly trust,” Jareth assured her in a soothing voice.

Knowing better than to go against her mother’s wishes, Jessica ran straight ahead, only to be met by Jareth’s towering body.

“Do you enjoy music?” he said with his eyes ever so slightly squinted, “it seems you thrive on it when you’re in your darkest moments.”

Jareth leaned down toward Jessica and she stared at the bridge of his nose, hoping to give nothing away.

“That’s none of your business,” she snapped.

 

Jareth smiled and she wished she had the strength to hit him, but with his height and muscular build, it would have been useless.

“Everything about you is my business,” he grinned.

Jareth walked around the corner and Jessica followed with a large stone in her hand. As she was about to strike him she rounded the corner and found that he had disappeared.

“This place is getting weirder by the second”.

Jessica dropped the rock and ran when the wall behind her creaked and began to grow longer at an alarming pace. Another wall began to grow in the other direction and she had very little time to choose her way out.

“I don’t believe this stupid maze!”

Suddenly the walls stopped moving and a large letter appeared on the flat surface: a capital c made of gold with a picturesque square border around it.

 

“What?” she shrieked in a high tone.

The walls shook and cut her off on either side.

“What am I supposed to do?”

The walls shook and inched closer on the sides at odd intervals; shake, move. Shake, move. There were six. In the back of her mind Jessica heard alarm bells ringing. _If I don’t solve the puzzle the walls will crush me… but what does that C stand for?_ And then it hit her; it wanted her to sing the note. She was the C, the middle note, stuck in the middle of a square. Carefully thinking her tone through in her mind, Jessica hit a note. It was too high. The walls creaked and crept closer. She tried again and went too low. The walls were almost toughing her arms. She tried again and nothing happened for a while, as if the Labyrinth were teasing her. When the walls groaned she closed her eyes and prepared for her imminent death, only to find that one of the walls had moved away. The opening revealed an opening where a man sat with a strange hat made out of a bird’s body.

 

The bird spied her and called out to her.

“Woo woo! Who are you? We haven’t had many visitors down here have we? Last one was a long long long time a –”

The old man looked up and frowned.

“Pipe down you sack of feathers” he bellowed “the lady doesn’t know where she is.”

“ – go,” the bird finished in his strangely Hispanic accent.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you sir but where am I? Am I near to the castle?”

“Look around young lady and see for yourself.”

Jessica looked around and realised that the castle was closer, but not as close as she’d hoped.

“I’m still so far away…” Jessica saw something glint in the sun, waving left and right. For a happy moment she waved back with a smile, only to realise that it was Jareth waving a sword in an arc, not her mother with her father’s wristwatch.

 

“Does he ever give up?” she asked the old man.

The old man squinted at Jareth and shook his head.

“Until you defeat him he follows you through the Labyrinth and tries to take you off track. You best chance is to find a friend and get to the castle before your time runs out.”

Jessica saw a clock appear to her right and stared at it. Somehow she only had four hours left.

“I don’t –”

“ – believe it?” Jareth’s condescending tone cut it, “nor do I. I’ve only made this impossible for you because you know your mother’s story. In less than an hour you’ve already gotten half way there; that hardly seems fair now, does it?”

Jessica tried to punch Jareth but her arms and clenched fist went straight through his face. With anger spreading across her features, Jessica held his gaze and lowered her voice.

“You don’t play by the rules so neither will I.”

 

Noticing the sword in Jareth’s hand, Jessica glanced back at his face and dove for it, managing to catch him off-guard.

“I know how to fence,” she said in a threatening tone, “and I could carve you like a Thanksgiving turkey.”

Jareth smiled and stifled a laugh.

“I let you take it from me: you may need it,” he smiled.

Jareth disappeared in an instant and Jessica looked back to the clock: she’d missed out on 10 minutes with Jareth’s useless drabble. _I am a woman on a mission… a woman with a sword._


End file.
